Why does BT make it so difficult to cancel TNT sports?

[182Customer]

BT has made it very easy to enable BT sports, but for some reason it seems exceptionally difficult to cancel. Why is this BT?

[naylor2006]

What difficulty are you having, are you on a contract?

[182Customer · Accepted solution]

My contract rolled over from the old BT sport contract (TNT sports pack). I ended up calling in to the support number suggested in other posts 0330 123 4150 and managed to cancel eventually - it just seems overly difficult…

I would have expected ‘manage account’ to have a simple link to stop my subscription.

[DarrenDev]

We don't currently allow any contract based services to be cancelled online - this is pretty standard in the industry.

[zulu17]

Ofcom  do say (General Conditions extracts)

The full range of communication options should be clearly and prominently displayed on a provider’s website, along with information about the steps required to end a contract.
Good practice in this area includes: ….

for example, by phone and/or webchat, where the customer would speak directly in real-time to a customer service agent or using non-real-time options, such as by letter, email or via an online account, where they do not need to speak directly to the provider.

So the industry members do seem to falling short of what OFCOM consider good practice. perhaps EE and BT consumer can consider some improvements here.

[rbz5416]

What OFCOM should be saying is that any service that allows you to subscribe to online, must also have an option to cancel online.

[182Customer]

Completely agree.  If they can design the website to sign you up to a subscription, surely they can design the website to allow you to end your subscription.  I’m surprised this isn’t part of the ofcom guidelines.  Unfortunately I suspect the approach by BT and other corporations that use this as ‘standard practice’ will be difficult to change with ofcom getting involved.